Meetings watch: Parks and Recreation Board

The Clovis Parks and Recreation Board met Tuesday at the Parks and Recreation Department, 500 Sycamore.

• Parks and Recreation Director Bill Bizzell said the Clovis Municipal Golf Course would stay open until the end of August, at least.

He said the Colonial Golf Course is averaging 100 rounds a day on the weekend, and the goal is to put out a request for proposal to have an outside company run the course.

• Bizzell had a meeting Monday with Pecos League Commissioner Andrew Dunn, who wants to add Clovis to the league next season.

The league is having a game 7 p.m. July 28 at Mike Harris Field between the Ruidoso Osos and Roswell Invaders.

Dunn, who can be reached at 575-680-2212, is looking for game sponsors, and sponsors for hotel rooms and post-game meals.

• Bizzell said a pair of bids have come in for a splash park, built over the unused Hillcrest Park pool. The lowest of the bids was $599,000. Money for Hillcrest Park renovations would be supplied by bond money that Bizzell said will be available July 21. The city recently refinanced bonds, paid for through a parks and recreation tax increment.

• Parks Superintendent Neil Lambert was concerned the city was in danger of losing its Tree City USA designation. The designation requires a proclamation and a planting of a tree, and the latter needs to be done while the weather cooperates.

Lambert said he’d like to plant trees at schools because it’s an educational experience that students usually enjoy, but the timing may require a tree planting at a city park.

• Bizzell said crews aim to finish up the walking/bike trail at the Iris Arbor subdivision within the next few weeks and open it to the public. The city purchased $25,900 of asphalt from K.D. Barnett to build a trail 8 feet wide.

Commissioner Fred Van Soelen said he’d like to see a different name because Iris Arbor doesn’t sound like a proper name for the park, which includes a playa lake and is owned by the city primarily for drainage.

Van Soelen said the Goodwin family, which sold the property to the city, placed an item in the purchase contract that barred naming the park after them.

Bizzell said he was open to any suggestions for the park, and asked city commissioners to take suggestions as well.

• Bizzell expressed concern over prairie dogs at the Potter Park football field.

Lambert said he is one of just three people in the city licensed to exterminate the animals. Anybody tasked with the job, he said, would have to cover the entire football field in one shot. If the job was done piecemeal, he said, prairie dogs could avoid extermination by moving to a part of the field not being covered that day.

• Bizzell said he was still waiting on word from specific board members on the best place for a proposed dog park. Members have the option of land along 14th Street, but have concerns about parking.

• The committee had three members in attendance, one short of a quorum. The committee also failed to reach quorum the previous meeting. Bizzell said he would have to talk to members who aren’t attending, and to the city, to see if new appointments are necessary.